From home-style comfort to fine dining elegance, humankind’s oldest inhabited continent is supplying new joys to eaters and chefs alike.
Brian Cole was five when civil war forced him and his family to flee Sierra Leone. It was the last time he saw his birthplace. Close to three decades later and Cole is rediscovering his homeland anew through food.
While the head chef of Hearth at the Ritz-Carlton Perth spends his working hours exploring the possibilities of native ingredients and open fires, his days off are spent showcasing African food culture.
First, it was tacos with jerk sauce at a major food show last year, then a trip to Sydney to join forces with fellow grillers Anason and Firepop for a Good Food event at The Streets of Barangaroo. Cole’s contribution to this year’s Taste Great Southern party, meanwhile, included grilled lamb skewers hit with suya, a punchy Nigerian spice mix that’s been embraced throughout West Africa.
March, however, allowed Cole to really express himself. As part of the Kita Food Festival in Singapore, he took over modern African restaurant Tamba and served a thrilling seven-course meal inspired by traditional Sierra Leonese flavours and his mother Elsie’s home cooking. (The dinner will go down, no question, as one of my favourite meals of 2025.)
In July, locals get their chance to taste Cole’s contemporary West African cooking when he pops up at Highgate’s Twenty Seats on Monday, July 28 and Tuesday, July 29. Nab a seat at the table ($185 per ticket; tickets released 12pm on Friday June 27) and be rewarded with a wild 10-course feast starring a polished remake of Ghanian sugar bread; scallops sharpened by Sierra Leon’s famous cucumber soup gron; chicken wings stuffed with jerk sauce, plus other vignettes from Cole’s past and present.
“I’ve cooked professionally for nearly 16 years so to be able to cook the food of my heritage the way it should be [cooked] and to share it with my hometown is a dream,” says Cole who, in preparation for the dinner, spent time learning and codifying mum’s recipes.
“I’ve learned more in this short time cooking West African food than I have in the rest of my career.”
Not that moonlighting fine-dining chefs are the only way to experience African flavours, of course. While African migration in WA began in the 60s, most African migrants arrived here after 1991: a mix of students, humanitarian refugees and skilled migrants.
Maybe it’s just my experience but growing up in the 80s and 90s, “African food” in Perth meant steakhouses touching on the themes of safari, hunting, Dr-Livingstone-I-presume? wilderness adventures and South African braai cooking.
Considering the hallowed place that the barbie holds in Aussie culture, it’s no surprise that giant ribeyes and boerewors found an audience here, ditto for now-shuttered establishments such as Zebra’s African Steakhouse and Hippo Creek.
But while (southern) African food will never outrun its association with flesh and fire, it’s great to see more local African menus offer Cape Malay-influenced bobotie (curry), the Bunny Chow of Durban’s Indian-South African communities, and other items that reflect the diversity of the Rainbow Nation as well as other counties that occupy Africa’s south.
Shifting to the other end of Africa, the flavours of North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Morrocco, Tunisia, Sudan) and the Horn of Africa (chiefly Ethiopia and Eritrea) are also represented here. Modern Australian cuisine has nationalised harissa, ras el hanout, chermoula and other preparations from the former. Many eaters will also be familiar with the tangy, spongy joys of injera: the fermented teff flatbread that’s indispensable to Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine. (But if not, please head to Lalileba Ethiopian Restaurant in Westminster with the quickness.)
Some observers, however, reckon the Horn of Africa belongs to East Africa along with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It’s a fair point. At the very least, shifting Ethiopia and Eritrea into with Africa’s eastern conference would bulk out Perth’s East African dining category.
But for now, casual cafe Swahili Fusion in Girrawheen is your safest bet for ugali (cornmeal), Kenyan-style kienyiji chicken stew and other regional signatures.
At last December’s United Colours of Islam festival, a Kenyan food stall provided me with my first taste of maroo bhajia (garam-coated fried potato) and puffy mahambri bread.
It’s the growth in West African food, however, that best signals the growing interest in African cuisine. You want fish and okra soup, banku (balls of fermented corn and cassava), jollof rice and other Ghanian staples? You want Libas African Cuisine in Thornlie Square.
For a more central option, Asada Jeegs in Mount Hawthorn also focuses on the flavours of Ghana. Like many African restaurants, it’s benefitted from fufu – the region’s starchy dough made of pounded flour – going viral on social media.
As much as us food geeks love getting granular with regional dishes and what-came-from-where, I write this with an important caveat. Africa, even when cleaved into regions, is big. The continent houses an estimated 1.6 billion folks that speak around 2000 different languages and pray to God-knows-how-many deities.
As it is with meatloaf, ragu, laksa and other soul foods, recipes and preferences vary from city to city, household to household. Guidelines are just that and should never be taken as gospel. But if any of these words help you navigate the wide, delicious world of African food, I’d be delighted, as would West Australian cooks championing their homelands. Cooks such as Dwight Alexander, the Zimbabwean-owned chef-owner responsible for Northbridge’s brilliant modern African dining room, Peasant’s Paradice.
In addition to serving great renditions of dishes gleaned from across (southern) Africa, Alexander also supplies neighbouring Bar Love with African-inspired bar snacks, as well as hosts events celebrating the diversity of African culture, not just through food, but via art and music: see this weekend’s third instalment of Follicle being held in conjunction with former Kaya Radio host Shoshi Montsitsi and South African artist Calvin Thoo. That the event is booked out suggests, pleasingly, that Perth is hungry for food experiences backed by a strong cultural connection.
“I’m seeing a lot of diners seeking out something new which is great to see,” says Alexander.
“African cuisine is at the forefront of their search.”
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
